cambodian genocide 1975-1979. what do these kids all have in common?
TRANSCRIPT
So are all of these people
Wall of RemembranceIn Memory of the Victims of the Khmer Rouge
50 photos, 50 faces, 50 victims
Killed by the Khmer RougeToul Sleng Prison, 1975-1979
50 out of two million dead
What happened?During the Vietnam War, Cambodia supplied both sides of the War.USA began bombing North Vietnam Soldiers in Cambodia.Cambodia’s government was overthrown by a group called the Khymer Rouge.They felt the government was being too friendly with the US.They set up a communist government led by Pol Pot.
Pol PotBegan to reconstruct Cambodia.
Renamed the country Kampuchea.
Forced all citizens to work on collective farms.
Killed anyone who opposed him.
Who was targeted?Intellectual and educated peopleSick, disabled, old, and very youngPeople who refused to obeyLawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists and their extended families. Buddhist monks
It was possible for people to be shot simply for knowing a foreign language, wearing glasses, laughing, or crying.
WitnessesThey ordered the city evacuated. Everyone was to head for the countryside. They killed those who argued against leaving. Two million frightened people started walking out of the capital. The guerrilla soldiers even ordered the wounded out of hospitals. Most couldn't walk, so their relatives wheeled them out on their beds. I watched many Cambodian friends being herded out. Most of them I never saw again.
Witnesses'Cambodian warriors have an old custom of cutting the livers from the bodies of their foes, then cooking and eating them. The belief is that this gives strength and protection against being killed. Pictures exist of a smiling soldier eating the liver of a fighter he had killed, one of decapitated corpses being dragged along, and one of a human head being lowered by the hair into boiling water.